Thursday Thirteen #8: Thirteen Thoughts About “Radical Inclusivity”

Yester­day, I received an e-mail from a reader who said:

I read your very first post in Jan­u­ary and a por­tion stood out. (“… it became clear to me that, as evi­denced by his teach­ing and writ­ing on the ques­tion of whether or not gay per­sons should be ordained and mar­ried by the church, not to men­tion the mind­set of the major­ity of my fel­low parish­ioners, homo­pho­bia ran ram­pant there.”), and then I noticed your rain­bow image “Rad­i­cal Inclusivity.”

The reader then shared that a mem­ber of the fam­ily recently came out, remark­ing that “[i]t speaks rebel­lion to me.”

We had a great e-mail exchange and that inspired me to share my thoughts on the sub­ject of rad­i­cal inclusivity.

1. I have intently stud­ied the Bible on the ques­tion of whether sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion is a “choice” or “lifestyle” vs. innate or inher­ent char­ac­ter­is­tic. I have reviewed all of the pas­sages used by the church (I use that term in the cor­po­rate, generic sense, not to refer to any denom­i­na­tion or sect) to refuse ordi­na­tion and mar­riage to gay, les­bian, bisex­ual and trans­gen­dered per­sons. I have stud­ied all the pas­sages cited by those folks in sup­port of their argu­ment that they are equal, wor­thy and valu­able – and called to serve in the same way that het­ero­sex­ual per­sons are.

2. The Bible has to be read within its his­tor­i­cal con­text and the fact is that the pas­sages used to deny equal rights, includ­ing ordi­na­tion, were writ­ten in accor­dance with soci­etal norms of the day. Noth­ing more. We sim­ply can’t take it all lit­er­ally and apply it to our daily lives in this cen­tury. For instance, are we to walk around in the face of sci­en­tific proof of evo­lu­tion insist­ing that the earth was cre­ated in seven twenty-four-hour days? How ridicu­lous! Cre­ation and evo­lu­tion are not con­tra­dic­tory con­cepts when you read Gen­e­sis as the alle­gory that it is. Should we go back to cov­er­ing our heads? In Corinth, only pros­ti­tutes went out with their heads uncov­ered, so Paul told “decent” women to cover up! Obvi­ously, that text has no rel­e­vance for us now.

3. After prayer­ful dis­cern­ment, I real­ized that there is much about the human con­di­tion that med­ical sci­ence does not under­stand yet. There­fore, I can­not, in good con­science, stand in judg­ment of other persons.

4. Lis­ten to the voices of the gay, les­bian, bisex­ual and trans­gen­dered com­mu­nity. Their com­mit­ment as Chris­tians is no dif­fer­ent than any­one else’s. Their desire to serve is no dif­fer­ent. Look into their hearts and see their faith reflected in their eyes. You will find it is more like look­ing into a mir­ror than per­haps you ever imag­ined. Because we are all chil­dren of the same Divine Creator.

5. I lis­tened to the judg­ments, big­otry, prej­u­dice and plain-out hate speech of the insti­tu­tional church and observed the moral supe­ri­or­ity of per­sons who had never under­taken a study of these issues or made any attempt to com­pre­hend them. I sat in class­rooms where pas­tors claimed to be pre­sent­ing both sides of the issue – white, het­ero­sex­ual pas­tors who had never even spo­ken or com­mu­ni­cated with a per­son who was gay, les­bian, bisex­ual or trans­gen­dered, and refused to invite a mem­ber of that com­mu­nity to address the class and answer ques­tions. I was repulsed. Most offen­sive were/are the het­ero­sex­u­als who say things like “Let them have their own church and we’ll have ours” (voiced in my for­mer con­gre­ga­tion, at which point I got up and left the room — and it should have been a per­ma­nent exit right then and there) or worse, “If we pray over them long enough, they’ll be straight.”

6. The Divine revealed to me that the strug­gle for equal­ity for gays, les­bians, bisex­ual and trans­gen­dered per­sons is no dif­fer­ent than the bat­tles pre­vi­ously waged by per­sons of color or women. If you pray over a long enough, will the color of their skin change? Should women go to their own church while men attend a dif­fer­ent one? Such con­cepts applied to gay, les­bian, bisex­ual or trans­gen­dered per­sons is equally pre­pos­ter­ous and as out­ra­geously offen­sive. How could any­one think oth­er­wise in this day and age? It bog­gles my mind, frankly.

7. There­fore, if we are going to err, we must err on the side of cau­tion and that side calls for rad­i­cal inclu­sive­ness in the church on earth. Any other action is rep­re­hen­si­ble when the cost of doing any­thing else is mea­sured in human terms.

8. Jesus didn’t cast any­one out. He hung out with society’s unde­sir­ables, includ­ing, in his day, women and chil­dren. Jesus would embrace the con­cept of rad­i­cal inclu­siv­ity and be wor­ship­ing at that “other” church with the peo­ple of color, women, and gay, les­bian, bisex­ual and trans­gen­dered out­casts. So that’s the church I would be attend­ing, along with him. At his side is where I want to be in all things.

9. The reader’s fam­ily mem­ber was, in all like­li­hood, never straight, but was lying to the world about her authen­tic self. She was prob­a­bly lying to her­self, as well, until she finally found the courage to face and reveal the truth. I doubt that “rebel­lion” has any­thing to do with it. Rather, what I’ve come to under­stand is that per­sons who are gay, les­bian or bisex­ual come to an aware­ness of their sex­u­al­ity the same way that het­ero­sex­u­als do: At a very early age and with clar­ity. It’s just that many of them try to be some­thing they really aren’t in order to meet soci­etal expec­ta­tions. That’s why I’m con­vinced that sci­en­tists are going to dis­cover sex­u­al­ity is tied to a gene and is an inher­ent char­ac­ter­is­tic over which peo­ple have no choice. My gay, les­bian and bisex­ual friends always say that “if straight peo­ple would just ask,” they would be happy to help them under­stand in order to pro­mote unity and tol­er­ance. So my reader should sim­ply ask her fam­ily mem­ber about her new life. She will prob­a­bly appre­ci­ate the inter­est and candor.

10. Ask your­self which is more impor­tant to you: Would you rather belong to a church led by a pas­tor who lives openly and hon­estly in a same-sex mar­riage and is a per­son with integrity who con­ducts him/herself in an eth­i­cal man­ner, respect­ful of all per­sons or a church led by a pas­tor who lives openly in a het­ero­sex­ual mar­riage but lies to parish­ioners, abuses the power and author­ity granted to the pas­tor by the con­gre­ga­tion by virtue of the fact that he/she holds that office, and manip­u­lates church mem­bers who vol­un­teer their tal­ents and donate their time in order to advance the pastor’s own agenda? For me, it’s no contest.

11. For my reader’s fam­ily mem­ber and all per­sons, I think the appro­pri­ate prayer is for all of the Divine’s chil­dren to walk the path the Divine would have us walk, whether it be as het­ero­sex­ual, gay, straight, bisex­ual or trans­gen­dered persons.

12. What is most impor­tant is that we live in a way that gives glory to the Divine in all things. I believe that I glo­rify the Divine by embrac­ing and liv­ing out the prin­ci­ple of rad­i­cal inclusivity.

13. Until the insti­tu­tional church – all denom­i­na­tions – “gets” these sim­ple con­cepts, it will con­tinue to dimin­ish in power and influ­ence, as more peo­ple stand up, like me, and say “Enough. I can’t con­tinue to par­tic­i­pate in an orga­ni­za­tion that is backward-thinking and fails to pro­vide equal rights and oppor­tu­ni­ties to all persons.”

A Prayer for Our Times

Cre­ator God, maker of all things new,
We praise you for the won­der of your cre­ation,
for the gift of mat­ter;
for the depth and breadth of the Cos­mos;
and for birthing us as mat­ter become aware of itself.

We praise you for the abun­dance and beauty of all things;
for the gift of life;
for the diver­sity of liv­ing things;
and for the great ecolo­gies that sus­tains us.

We give thanks for our embod­i­ment as per­sons,
for our being and our life,
through which you have made known
the mys­tery of The Incarnation.

We give praise and thanks for our sex­u­al­ity,
for the inti­macy of being for another;
for mak­ing love known
and for shar­ing life in relationship.

Incar­nate God, Our Friend, the bringer of Wis­dom,
Open our hearts, that we may be
your instru­ments of jus­tice,
God-bearers of love and mercy,
that all may live in peace.

Teach us your way con­tin­u­ally,
that we may walk in dis­ci­ple­ship,
as friends of Earth and sky,
brother and sis­ter to all.

Spirit God, in whom all things become one,
Come as our source of renewal;
Set us aflame with justice-making,
that the Earth and all its ecolo­gies
shall not suf­fer extinction.

Come, Holy Spirit, renew the whole of Cre­ation,
Help us to over­come vio­lence,
to end all dis­crim­i­na­tion
and to remove bar­ri­ers to justice.

Amen.

Prayer com­posed by Wal Ander­son, Pil­grim Church, Ade­laide, Sep­tem­ber, 2003.
Repro­duced in Horne, B., Lock­yer, A., & Wick­ham, S., (eds) Singing while it is still dark… a gift book of prayers and med­i­ta­tions for mem­bers of the South Aus­tralian Synod 2003. A Pub­li­ca­tion of Friends of Unity, 2003, p. 63.

Thurs­day Thirteen

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